The
Animated Circle of Fifths
This application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch allows you to view and manipulate the musical Circle of Fifths. This will allow you to determine chord progressions for new music you are writing or help you determine the Key (tonic and mode) of your favorite songs. It is sometimes called a Circle of Fourths, if you move around the wheel in a counter clockwise direction.
The outer ring is called the Tonic Ring. It allows you to select the desired Tonic note. The tonic for the selected key is locate above the Roman numeral 'I', if major, or above the 'i', if minor.
The inner ring shows the various degrees for the selected Mode. There are 7 degrees in the common modes used most popular music. The first three are shown in upper case to show that the chords are Major, the next three are lower case to indicate the minor chords, and the last one is lower case with the
°
(degree) symbol indicating the diminished chord. As you select various modes, the order of the degrees will change.
After you select a tonic using the Tonic select button
, both wheels will redraw showing the new tonic in the I(i) position and both wheels will rotate to show the tonic at the top of the wheel. In a similar fashion, selecting a new Mode will redraw the wheels shown with the new degree order and place the I(i) position at the top.
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